Quotes about finance

A collection of quotes on the topic of finance, financing, governance, government.

Quotes about finance

“Surrendering to state or private financing is bullshit.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Revista Momento ahora o nunca, n°139 (2019)

“Surrendering to state or private financing is bullshit.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Revista Momento ahora o nunca, n°139 (2019)

“For those diehard conspiracy theorists who will refuse to believe this, I turn the tables and say: show me where I needed anyone else. Financing? Logistics? Specialised tech skills? Brainpower? Strategy? Show me where I needed a dark, mysterious 'Mr X!”

Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) American army soldier, security guard, terrorist

Letters published in the Buffalo News (10 June 2001)
2000s

“Thus, in one way or another, the whole world is more or less the debtor to and vassal of these forn international banker countries, the four "pillars" of world finance capital.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Source: Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), Chapter Three
Source: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: Full Text of 1916 Edition

World, Way, Country

“Finance capital is not only interested in the already known sources of raw materials; it is also interested in possible sources of raw materials, because present-day technical development is extremely rapid, and because land which is useless today may be made fertile tomorrow if new methods are applied (to devise these new methods a big bank can equip a whole expedition of engineers, agricultural experts, etc.), and large amounts of capital are invested.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Source: Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), Chapter Six

“Government spending cannot create additional jobs. If the government provides the funds required by taxing the citizens or by borrowing from the public, it abolishes on the one hand as many jobs as it creates on the other. If government spending is financed by borrowing from the commercial banks, it means credit expansion and inflation. If in the course of such an inflation the rise in commodity prices exceeds the rise in nominal wage rates, unemployment will drop. But what makes unemployment shrink is precisely the fact that real wage rates are falling.”

Ludwig von Mises book Socialism

Socialism (1922), Epilogue (1947)

“Women fake orgasms and men fake finances.”

Suze Orman (1951) American author, television personality, motivational speaker, businesswoman, investor

Women, Men

“We are told [that the West is threatened by] the terrorist threat of Islamic jihadism. Again, opinion is perfectly manipulated on the subject. Jihadism is merely the inevitable product of the triad's continued support of reactionary political Islam inspired and financed by Gulf Wahhabism. The exercise of this so-called Islamic power is the best guarantee of the total destruction of the ability of societies in the region to resist the dictates of liberal globalization. At the same time, it offers the best pretext for giving the appearance of legitimacy to the NATO's interventions.”

Samir Amin (1931–2018) Egyptian economist

The Election of Donald Trump https://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2016/amin301116.html (30 November 2016), Monthly Review Magazine (MRzine)

Exercises, Support, Appearance, Time

“Well, I'm a product of the Australian film industry which by its very nature is independent, sometimes for better sometimes for worse. I suppose the collaborative nature of being independent is what feels natural to me, and when people talk about working in Hollywood I don't quite know what that means. Being part of the Indiana Jones franchise and The Lord of the Rings, that felt more like a departure for me. But in the end, I think the whole notion of the independent spirit is not just about the way a film is financed but about the creative thinking behind it, and sometimes that can exist in the mainstream; those sensibilities can cross over and audiences are interested in, not a homogenous way of storytelling but a diverse way of receiving a narrative.”

Cate Blanchett (1969) Australian actress

Backstage press room, after winning the Independent Spirit Award for her performance in I'm Not There, in response to the question: "As an actress, do you prefer Independents over the mainstream?"

People, Way, Feeling, Departure

“When I once called myself a “Sunday painter” dabbling in stochastic finance, that was not meant to belittle finance theory as a branch of serious economic theory. Such a peculiar view was expressed again and again by the late Milton Friedman, a dizzy view that I still find incomprehensible.”

Paul A. Samuelson (1915–2009) American economist

New millennium, An Enjoyable Life Puzzling Over Modern Finance Theory, 2009

“In love, as in finance, only the rich can get credit.”

Françoise Sagan book Dans un mois, dans un an

Dans un mois, dans un an (1957, Those Without Shadows, translated 1957)

Love

“The Social-Democratic leaders glossed over and concealed from the masses the true class nature of fascism, and did not call them to the struggle against the increasingly reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie. They bear great historical responsibility for the fact that, at the decisive moment of the fascist offensive, a large section of the working people of Germany and of a number of other fascist countries failed to recognize in fascism the most bloodthirsty monster of finance capital, their most vicious enemy, and that these masses were not prepared to resist it.”

Georgi Dimitrov (1882–1949) Bulgarian politician

Source: The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism, Ch. 1.

People, Nature, Decision, Country

“It seems to me that this is theoretically right, for whatever the question under discussion — whether religious, philosophical, political, or economic; whether it concerns prosperity, morality, equality, right, justice, progress, responsibility, cooperation, property, labor, trade, capital, wages, taxes, population, finance, or government — at whatever point on the scientific horizon I begin my researches, I invariably reach this one conclusion: The solution to the problems of human relationships is to be found in liberty.”

Frédéric Bastiat book The Law

The Law (1850)

Justice, Question, Problem

“The fascist movement in Italy was a spontaneous movement of large masses, with new leaders from the rank and file. It is a plebian movement in origin, directed and financed by big capitalist powers. It issued forth from the petty bourgeoisie, the slum proletariat, and even to a certain extent from the proletarian masses; Mussolini, a former socialist, is a "self-made" man arising from this movement.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Source: Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It (1944), Ch. 1

“Suitcases full of banknotes were said to be routinely taken to the Prime Minister’s house. Former Syndicate member S. K. Patil is reported to have said that Mrs Gandhi did not even return the suitcases... The Prime Minister is unlikely to have paid close attention to the dubious origins of some of the funds which went into Congress’s coffers. That was a matter which she left largely to her principal fundraiser, Lalit Narayan Mishra, who – though she doubtless did not realize it – also accepted Soviet money. On at least one occasion a secret gift of 2 million rupees from the Politburo to Congress (R) was personally delivered after midnight by the head of Line PR in New Delhi, Leonid Shebarshin. Another million rupees were given on the same occasion to a newspaper which supported Mrs Gandhi. Short and obese with several chins, Mishra looked the part of the corrupt politician he increasingly became. Indira Gandhi, despite her own frugal lifestyle, depended on the money he collected from a variety of sources to finance Congress (R). So did her son and anointed heir, Sanjay, whose misguided ambition to build an Indian popular car and become India’s Henry Ford depended on government favours.”

Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister

The Mitrokhin Archive

Money, Housing, Dependency, Support

“My expectation is that our families package, which we will be introducing as a matter of priority will have the effect of lifting tens of thousands of children out of poverty. From there, though, I want to establish clear targets. We’ve always said that we want them put in legislation, and every year we will then report, as part of the Public Finance Act, on how much progress we’ve made. So, I can say now that, yes, I wanted to match their 100,000, but I want incremental goals to hold us to account. In my mind, some of the targets that we’ve set ourselves, some of the goals that we measure ourselves on as a society, don’t take into account the effects on individuals, on their wellbeing. This will be a government that takes into account those markers, and the wellbeing of people will be my sign of success.”

Jacinda Ardern (1980) Prime Minister of New Zealand

Interview with Lisa Owen at Newshub Nation, 21 October 2017

Family, Success, Children, People

“The secret of high finance… if you really need a loan, you won't qualify. And if you don't need a loan, all the lenders will line up to give you money.”

Joanne Fluke (1943) writer

Source: Peach Cobbler Murder

Money, Secret

“In my fool hardy youth, when my friends were dreaming of heroic deeds in the realms of engineering and law, finance and national politics, I dreamt of becoming a librarian.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Source: The Library at Night

Youth, Law, Dreams, Fools

“When it comes to paying contractors, the sky is the limit; when it comes to financing the basic functions of the state, the coffers are empty.”

Naomi Klein (1970) Canadian author and activist

Source: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007)

“You know what's truly weird about any financial crisis? We made it up. Currency, money, finance, they're all social inventions. When the sun comes up in the morning it's shining on the same physical landscape, all the atoms are in place.”

Bruce Sterling (1954) American writer, speaker, futurist, and design instructor

Money, Sun

“Life could not be entirely devoted to debauchery and monkeys. Magnus had to finance all the drinking somehow.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: What Really Happened in Peru

Life, Drink

“The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right to not agree, not to listen, and not to finance one's own antagonists.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Source: The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism

Freedom

“The House of Lords, in rejecting the Budget which provides for the national expenditure of the year, are refusing, for the first time since the great Rebellion, aids and supplies to the Crown, and by that fact and by their intrusion upon finance they commit an act of violence against the British Constitution. There is no precedent of any kind for the rejection of a Budget Bill by the House of Lords in all the long annals of the British Parliament, or, before that, in the still more venerable annals of the English Parliament. The custom of centuries forbids their intrusion upon finance.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The People's Rights [1909] (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), p. 25
Early career years (1898–1929)

Time, Housing

“The government of the United States represents, as its army also does, the finances of the United States. But these finances do not represent the North American people; they represent a small group of financiers, the owners of all the big enterprises… who also exploit the North American people. Clearly they do not exploit them in the same manner that they exploit us, the human beings of inferior races… for we have not had the good fortune of being born from blond, Anglo-Saxon parents. But they do exploit and divide them, they too are divided into blacks and whites, and they too are divided into men and women, union and non-union, employed and unemployed.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

As quoted in Che Guevara Speaks: Selected Speeches and Writings (1968), by George Lavan, p. 17

Women, Men, People, Parent

“Well, then, some of you will say, and rightly, "Well, what did you use the fund for, Senator? Why did you have to have it?" Let me tell you in just a word how a Senate office operates. First of all, a Senator gets $15,000 a year in salary. He gets enough money to pay for one trip a year, a round trip, that is, for himself, and his family between his home and Washington, DC. And then he gets an allowance to handle the people that work in his office to handle his mail. And the allowance for my State of California, is enough to hire 13 people. And let me say, incidentally, that that allowance is not paid to the Senator. It is paid directly to the individuals that the Senator puts on his payroll. But all of these people and all of these allowances are for strictly official business; business, for example, when a constituent writes in and wants you to go down to the Veteran's Administration and get some information about his GI policy — items of that type, for example. But there are other expenses that are not covered by the Government. And I think I can best discuss those expenses by asking you some questions.Do you think that when I or any other senator makes a political speech, has it printed, should charge the printing of that speech and the mailing of that speech to the taxpayers? Do you think, for example, when I or any other Senator makes a trip to his home State to make a purely political speech that the cost of that trip should be charged to the taxpayers? Do you think when a Senator makes political broadcasts or political television broadcasts, radio or television, that the expense of those broadcasts should be charged to the taxpayers? Well I know what your answer is. It's the same answer that audiences give me whenever I discuss this particular problem: The answer is no. The taxpayers shouldn't be required to finance items which are not official business but which are primarily political business.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

1950s, Checkers speech (1952)

Money, People, Family, Home

“Neil Cavuto: Yeah but, you can't, Congressman, we've got a pretty good economy going here, right? We've got productivity soaring. We've got retail sales that are strong. We've got corporate earnings that for, what, the 19th quarter, are up double digit? We've got a market chasing highs, I mean, this isn't happening in a vacuum, right?
Ron Paul: Yeah, that's nice, but when you have to borrow, you know… My personal finances would be very good if I borrowed a million dollars every month. But, someday, the bills will become due. And the bills will come due in this country, and then we'll have to pay for it. We can't afford this war, and we can't afford the entitlement system.
Neil Cavuto: Look, Congressman, did you say this 10 years ago, when the numbers were similarly strong…
Ron Paul: Go back and check.
Neil Cavuto: …and we were still borrowing a good deal then.
Ron Paul: That's right, that means the dollar bubble is much bigger than ever.
Neil Cavuto: So what's gonna happen?
Ron Paul: We've had the NASDAQ bubble collapse already. We have the housing bubble in the middle of a collapse, so the dollar bubble will collapse as well. We have to live within our means. You can't print money out of the blue, and think you can print your money into prosperity.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Your World with Neil Cavuto, FOX News, May 15, 2007 http://www.newshounds.us/2007/05/16/rep_ron_paul_tells_fox_newsrepublicans_the_truth_they_dont_like_hearing_it.php http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU2RK0TNbXk 2000s, 2006-2009

Money, War, Thinking, Strong

“I thank your Excellency for your generous and obliging offer. Most certain, my inclination leads me to a resignation. My reputation I value more than any advantages of gain; and I consider it in great danger. I wrote your Excellency lengthy upon this subject yesterday, and therefore shall say but little upon it to-day. I intend to write to Congress to day, upon the subject of my apprehensions and determination; and, if they do not give me those kinds of assurances, which are necessary to guard my reputation from malice and detraction. I shall insist upon leaving the business. The politics of Congress are really alarming, and the state of the finances astonishing; where they will end, time only can unfold.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (26 April 1779)

Business, Time

“This is the Court of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the round of every man's acquaintance, which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give--who does not often give--the warning, "Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!"”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 1

Hope, Courage, Suffering, Heart

“I am not going to bind myself to the cart-tail of a lot of capitalists. It may be unpleasant to take the money of one plutocrat in exchange for an honour, but when all is said, nothing very serious happens. Whereas if a political party is financed by great trade interests, who want something for their money, the result is certain to be very serious, as no public question would be considered on its merits.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Quoted in Lord Riddell's diary entry (2 July 1922), J. M. McEwen (ed.), The Riddell Diaries 1908-1923 (London: The Athlone Press, 1986), p. 370.
Prime Minister

Money, Question

“On the contrary, it's because somebody knows something about it that we can't talk about physics. It's the things that nobody knows anything about that we can discuss. We can talk about the weather; we can talk about social problems; we can talk about psychology; we can talk about international finance — gold transfers we can't talk about, because those are understood — so it's the subject that nobody knows anything about that we can all talk about!”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

Rejoinder when told that he couldn't talk about physics, because "nobody [at this table] knows anything about it."
Part 5: "The World of One Physicist", "Alfred Nobel's Other Mistake", p. 310.
Quoted in Handbook of Economic Growth (2005) by Philippe Aghion and Steven N. Durlauf.
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)

Problem, Weather

“The expenses of the royal household, wars, and lavish public building were financed by tolls and the profits of the king's foreign trade monopoly, by conscription of labour and heavy taxation. The results were impoverishment of the masses, alienation of land, and the development of a proletariat.”

Eric Roll, Baron Roll of Ipsden (1907–2005) British economist

Source: A History of Economic Thought (1939), Chapter I, The Beginnings, p. 25

War

“The interest capitalistic inflation however is like a devouring fire which is not extinguished until it has consumed all the treasures of the world and made the whole of mankind interest-slaves of international finance—or until the interest slavery is broken.”

Gottfried Feder (1883–1941) German economist and politician

Source: The German State on a National and Socialist Foundation (1923), pp. 117-118

World

“The truth is nobody finances tiny movies anymore. I mean there are so many movies I like that I hope will get their money together. It's a different world than it was when I first started making independent movies. Something is really wrong right now. I was a part of it and things are so different now. You can't make a movie for three million dollars with a kind of known actor. It's impossible. I think in general it has to do with the financial state of the country. It's tough for everybody in every business, but the independent movies have really suffered I think…they would never have made Secretary. They never would have financed Secretary with an unknown actress and James Spader. There's just no way.”

Maggie Gyllenhaal (1977) American actress

2008-07-11, Comics2Film

Money, Truth, World, Hope

“Nowhere have REH’s epistemological flaws and empirical disappointments been more apparent than in efforts to model financial market outcomes, which are largely driven by participants’ expectations. Beginning with Robert Shiller’s (1981) pathbreaking paper, research has shown that REH models are unable to explain the basic features of fluctuations and risk in stock markets. Likewise, in their magisterial work on the current state of international macroeconomics, Maurice Obstfeld and Kenneth Rogoff (1996: 625) concluded that “the undeniable difficulties that international economists encounter in empirically explaining nominal exchangerate movements are an embarrassment, but one shared with virtually any other field that attempts to explain asset price data.” The failures of REH explanations of aggregate outcomes gave rise to alternative approaches, most notably behavioral finance models. However, sober assessments even by the likes of Obstfeld and Rogoff did not dispel the faith of most economists that REH models would one day be able to explain financial market outcomes and macroeconomic performance.”

Roman Frydman (1948) American economist

"Which Way Forward for Macroeconomics and Policy Analysis?" 2013

Faith, Disappointment, Behavior, Failure

“American capitalism has helped finance the communist take over of the world. Somebody is going to answer to God for this.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Unmasking the False Religion of Evolution (1996)

God, World, Help

“How does the rest of the world perceive America under Obama? We're the nation that stood by and didn't lift a finger when the Iranian public was protesting their government. We voiced no support and did not try to help in any significant way, and the protest was soon quelled. We're the nation that drew red lines in Syria and watched them being crossed without a whimper. We're the nation that only uttered a few lukewarm words as Putin invaded the Crimea and the Ukraine. We're the nation that traded five of the world's most dangerous terrorists for one American deserter. We're the nation that gave away the store to insure that Iran can finance its terrorist attacks and be assured of having a nuclear device in a few years.”

Charlie Daniels (1936) American singer and musician

2010s, 2016, Letter to America's Enemies (2016)

World, Way, Support, Help

“Ron Paul: What's happening is, there's transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class to the wealthy. This comes about because of the monetary system that we have. When you inflate a currency or destroy a currency, the middle class gets wiped out. So the people who get to use the money first which is created by the Federal Reserve system benefit. So the money gravitates to the banks and to Wall Street. That's why you have more billionaires than ever before. Today, this country is in the middle of a recession for a lot of people… As long as we live beyond our means we are destined to live beneath our means. And we have lived beyond our means because we are financing a foreign policy that is so extravagant and beyond what we can control, as well as the spending here at home. And we're depending on the creation of money out of thin air, which is nothing more than debasement of the currency. It's counterfeit… So, if you want a healthy economy, you have to study monetary theory and figure out why it is that we're suffering. And everybody doesn't suffer equally, or this wouldn't be so bad. It's always the poor people -- those who are on retired incomes -- that suffer the most. But the politicians and those who get to use the money first, like the military industrial complex, they make a lot of money and they benefit from it.
John McCain: Everybody is paying taxes and wealth creates wealth. And the fact is that I would commend to your reading, Ron, "Wealth of Nations," because that's what this is all about. A vibrant economy creates wealth. People pay taxes. Revenues are at an all time high.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

GOP debate, Dearborn, Michigan, October 9, 2007 http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071009/NEWS02/71009073 2000s, 2006-2009

Money, People, Home, Study

“We investigate how the degree to which credit markets are centralized affects efficiency when there is asymmetric information. Specifically, we argue that decentralization of credit may promote efficient project selection when creditors are not fully informed ex ante about project quality.
Our starting point is the idea that, although an entrepreneur (project manager) may have a relatively good idea of her project's quality from the outset, creditors acquire this information only later on, by which time the criteria for profitability may have changed. Thus, a poor project (one whose completion time is too long to be profitable ex ante) may nevertheless be financed, since a creditor cannot distinguish it at the time from a good (quick) project.”

Eric Maskin (1950) American Nobel laureate in economics

Mathias Dewatripont and Eric Maskin. " Credit and efficiency in centralized and decentralized economies http://www.sef.hku.hk/~cgxu/0601/ECON0601/Dewatripont-Maskin_SBC_RES95.pdf." The Review of Economic Studies 62.4 (1995): 541-555.

Idea, Change, Time

“It is the general authority to undertake the establishment of religion through the revival of religious sciences, the establishment of the pillars of Islam, the organization of jihad and its related functions of maintenance of armies, financing the soldiers, and allocation of their rightful portions from the spoils of war, administration of justice, enforcement of [the limits ordained by Allah, including the punishment for crimes (hudud)], elimination of injustice, and enjoining good and forbidding evil, to be exercised on behalf of the Prophet… It is no mercy to them to stop at intellectually establishing the truth of Religion to them. Rather, true mercy towards them is to compel them so that Faith finds a way to their minds despite themselves. It is like a bitter medicine administered to a sick man. Moreover, there can be no compulsion without eliminating those who are a source of great harm or aggression, or liquidating their force, and capturing their riches, so as to render them incapable of posing any challenge to Religion. Thus their followers and progeny are able to enter the faith with free and conscious submission… Jihad made it possible for the early followers of Islam from the Muhajirun and the Ansar to be instrumental in the entry of the Quraysh and the people around them into the fold of Islam. Subsequently, God destined that Mesopotamia and Syria be conquered at their hands. Later on it was through the Muslims of these areas that God made the empires of the Persians and Romans to be subdued. And again, it was through the Muslims of these newly conquered realms that God actualized the conquests of India, Turkey and Sudan. In this way, the benefits of jihad multiply incessantly, and it becomes, in that respect, similar to creating an endowment, building inns and other kinds of recurring charities.… Jihad is an exercise replete with tremendous benefits for the Muslim community, and it is the instrument of jihad alone that can bring about their victory.… The supremacy of his Religion over all other religions cannot be realized without jihad and the necessary preparation for it, including the procurement of its instruments. Therefore, if the Prophet’s followers abandon jihad and pursue the tails of cows [that is, become farmers] they will soon be overcome by disgrace, and the people of other religions will overpower them.”

Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (1703–1762) Indian muslim scholar

Source: Quoted in Bonney, Jihad from Qur’an to bin Laden, 101-3 Quoted from Spencer, Robert (2018). The history of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS.
Source: Shah Waliullah Dehlawi: in: Muhammad Al-Ghazali, Socio-political Thought of Shah Wali Allah. (Also quoted in Jihād: From Qur’ān to bin Laden by Richard Bonney. Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. also in Spencer, Robert in The history of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS, 2018.)

People, Exercises, Way, God

“[Engineering] is a great profession. There is the fascination of watching a figment of the imagination emerge through the aid of science to a plan on paper. Then it moves to realization in stone or metal or energy. Then it brings jobs and homes to men. Then it elevates the standards of living and adds to the comforts of life. That is the engineer’s high privilege.

The great liability of the engineer compared to men of other professions is that his works are out in the open where all can see them. His acts, step by step, are in hard substance. He cannot bury his mistakes in the grave like the doctors. He cannot argue them into thin air or blame the judge like the lawyers. He cannot, like the architects, cover his failures with trees and vines. He cannot, like the politicians, screen his shortcomings by blaming his opponents and hope that the people will forget. The engineer simply cannot deny that he did it. If his works do not work, he is damned. That is the phantasmagoria that haunts his nights and dogs his days. He comes from the job at the end of the day resolved to calculate it again. He wakes in the night in a cold sweat and puts something on paper that looks silly in the morning. All day he shivers at the thought of the bugs which will inevitably appear to jolt its smooth consummation.

On the other hand, unlike the doctor his is not a life among the weak. Unlike the soldier, destruction is not his purpose. Unlike the lawyer, quarrels are not his daily bread. To the engineer falls the job of clothing the bare bones of science with life, comfort, and hope. No doubt as years go by people forget which engineer did it, even if they ever knew. Or some politician puts his name on it. Or they credit it to some promoter who used other people’s money with which to finance it. But the engineer himself looks back at the unending stream of goodness which flows from his successes with satisfactions that few professions may know. And the verdict of his fellow professionals is all the accolades he wants.”

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st President of the United States of America

Excerpted from Chapter 11 "The Profession of Engineering"
The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: Years of Adventure, 1874-1929 (1951)

Life, Men, Money, People

“Neil Cavuto: …your campaign has received a $500 campaign donation from a white supremacist in West Palm Beach. And your campaign had indicated you have no intention to return it. What are you going to do with that?
Ron Paul: It is probably already spent. Why give it back to him and use it for bad purposes?
Neil Cavuto: …this Don Black who made the donation, and who ran a site called "Stormfront, White Pride Worldwide," now that you know it, now that you're familiar after the fact, you still would not return it?
Ron Paul: Well, if I spent his money and I took the money that maybe you might have sent to me and donate it back to him, that does not make any sense to me. Why should I give him money to promote his cause?
Neil Cavuto: …Hillary Clinton has had to do this, a number of other candidates have had to do this. Do you think that just is a bad practice?
Ron Paul: I think it is pandering. I think it is playing the political correctness… What about the people who get donations, want to get special interests from the military industrial complex? They put in — they raise, bundle their money, and send millions of dollars in there. And they want to rob the taxpayers. That is the real evil … that buys influence in government. And this is, to me, the corruption that should be corrected… you are missing the whole boat — the whole boat, because it is the immorality of government, it's the special interests in government, it's fighting illegal wars…
Neil Cavuto: All right.
Ron Paul: …and financing, and taxing the people, destroying the people through inflation, and undermining this prosperity of the country.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Your World with Neil Cavuto, FOX News, December 19, 2007 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317536,00.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrRtZaG63o8 2000s, 2006-2009

Money, War, People, Thinking

“The greatness of an estate, in bulk and territory, doth fall under measure; and the greatness of finances and revenue, doth fall under computation. The population may appear by musters; and the number and greatness of cities and towns by cards and maps. But yet there is not any thing amongst civil affairs more subject to error, than the right valuation and true judgment concerning the power and forces of an estate.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates
Essays (1625)

Error, Appearance

“I have repeatedly mentioned to your Excellency, for some months past, that the supplies of money furnished the department were very unequal to the current expenses. I have all along flattered myself that affairs would take a new and more favorable turn. As Congress were deliberating upon the subject of finance, I was led to believe that the schemes and plans they were adopting would afford more ample relief; and have encouraged the agents, under such an expectation, to proceed in the execution of the business. They have been enabled to extend their credit thus far, so as to keep the wheels in motion, hoping not to fail until government could find ways and means for furnishing us with cash more adequate to the demands.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (January 1780)

Money, Hope, Way, Business

“The real reason that physicians are rotten investors is that it never occurs to them that finance is a science, just like medicine.”

William J. Bernstein (1948) economist

Introduction, p. ix.
The Four Pillars of Investing (2002)

Science

“No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over finance capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself.”

Georgi Dimitrov (1882–1949) Bulgarian politician

Ch. 1, The Class Character of Fascism https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm#s2. The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism

“The best scheme of finance is, to spend as little as possible; and the best tax is always the lightest.”

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) French economist and businessman

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book III, On Consumption, Chapter VIII, Section I, p. 449

“But I venture to submit, my lord, that the consideration which the people of the Western countries receive in consequence of their voting power should be available to us, in matters of finance at any rate, through an “intelligent anticipation” – to use a phrase of Your Lordship’s- of our reasonable wishes on the part of the government.”

Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866–1915) social and political leader during the Indian Independence Movement

He commented criticizing the heavy taxation that was creating surpluses and the need to have a say in the matter by the representatives of the people. Pages=696-97
Sources of Indian Tradition

People, Intelligence, Parting, Country

“I will recall once more Russia's most recent history.
Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and compatriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself.
Individual savings were depreciated, and old ideals destroyed. Many institutions were disbanded or reformed carelessly. Terrorist intervention and the Khasavyurt capitulation that followed damaged the country's integrity. Oligarchic groups — possessing absolute control over information channels — served exclusively their own corporate interests. Mass poverty began to be seen as the norm. And all this was happening against the backdrop of a dramatic economic downturn, unstable finances, and the paralysis of the social sphere.
Many thought or seemed to think at the time that our young democracy was not a continuation of Russian statehood, but its ultimate collapse, the prolonged agony of the Soviet system.
But they were mistaken.
That was precisely the period when the significant developments took place in Russia. Our society was generating not only the energy of self-preservation, but also the will for a new and free life.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Kremlin RU, http://kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2005/04/25/2031_type70029type82912_87086.shtml (25 April 2005) 2000 - 2005

Life, Democracy, History, Thinking

“I began to think about William Shakespeare, the great literary figure. I would reckon he thought of himself as a dramatist. The thought that he was writing literature couldn't have entered his head. His words were written for the stage. Meant to be spoken not read. When he was writing Hamlet, I'm sure he was thinking about a lot of different things: "Who're the right actors for these roles?" "How should this be staged?" "Do I really want to set this in Denmark?" His creative vision and ambitions were no doubt at the forefront of his mind, but there were also more mundane matters to consider and deal with. "Is the financing in place?" "Are there enough good seats for my patrons?" "Where am I going to get a human skull?"”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

I would bet that the farthest thing from Shakespeare's mind was the question "Is this literature?"
Nobel Banquet Speech

Literature, Question, Thinking, Reading

“But you [Australians] have an overwhelmingly publicly-financed [health care] system…I come from a country that has the private monopoly system. I can tell you it is three times more expensive than the UK, and I just wanted to share with you that UK life expectancy is 81.6 years, in the US it’s 78.7 years. And we pay three times more than you do for the NHS”

Jeffrey D. Sachs (1954) American economist

National Health Service Climate, Welfare..., Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 October, 2018 http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4892252.htm

Life, Health, Time, Country

“Competition is the final price determinant and competitive prices may result in profits which force you to accept a rate of return less than you hoped for, or for that matter to accept temporary losses. And, in times of inflation, the rate-of-return concept comes up against the problem of assets undervalued in terms of replacement. Nevertheless, no other financial principle with which I am acquainted serves better than rate of return as an objective aid to business judgment. This principle had governed the thinking of the Finance Committee of General Motors since 1917.”

Alfred P. Sloan (1875–1966) American businessman

Source: My Years with General Motors, 1963, p. 140

Hope, Business, Problem, Thinking

“The centrally planned economies, dissatisfied with the outcome of their own efforts to achieve good economic growth performance, have changed strategy and decided to import high technology from the West. as well as necessary grains to supplement their domestic agicultural supplies. This new approach has opened their economies to Western inflation because imports have been reflecting rising world price. Gold and oil sales at correspondingly rising prices have been used by the Soviet Union to finance part of their import needs. but they are fully enmeshed in world inflation accounting in balancing rising export prices.”

Lawrence Klein (1920–2013) American economist

"Some Economic Scenarios for the 1980's," 1980

World, Effort, Change, Parting

“You couldn't advance in a finance department in this country unless you taught that the world was flat.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

As quoted in "The Heresy That Made Them Rich" by Joseph Nocera, in The New York Times (29 October 2005) http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B00E1D71E3FF93AA15753C1A9639C8B63

World, Country

“[G]overnment has an abysmal record of abusing the public’s trust, finances, and its own authority. Now some people want it to take on a bigger role?”

Jim Geraghty (1975) American journalist

Ten Reasons We Can't, and Shouldn't, Be Nordic (2018)

People

“A decline in the national housing price level would need to be substantial to trigger a significant rise in foreclosures, because the vast majority of homeowners have built up substantial equity in their homes despite large mortgage-market financed withdrawals of home equity in recent years.”

Alan Greenspan (1926) 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the United States

July 2005 http://www.startribune.com/nation/12598281.html, in testimony to the House Financial Services Committee. 2000s

Home, Housing

“The goal of the Libertarian Party is to get rid of big government, not find new ways of financing it. The most direct and effective way of ridding ourselves of the hundreds of federal programs intruding on our liberty is to cut off the means of funding them. Harry Browne said it best: “Abolish the income tax and replace it with nothing!””

R. Lee Wrights (1958–2017) American gubernatorial candidate

2012, " The Fair Tax Isn't Fair, It's a Farce http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=7101"

Way

“The principle that adequate health care should be provided for all, regardless of ability to pay, must be the foundation of any arrangements for financing the Health Service.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Prime Minister's Questions (1 December 1981) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104755 First term as Prime Minister

Health

“In my message last year I emphasized the necessity for further legislation with a view to expediting the consolidation of our rail ways into larger systems. The principle of Government control of rates and profits, now thoroughly embedded in our governmental attitude toward natural monopolies such as the railways, at once eliminates the need of competition by small units as a method of rate adjustment. Competition must be preserved as a stimulus to service, but this will exist and can be increased tinder enlarged systems. Consequently the consolidation of the railways into larger units for the purpose of securing the substantial values to the public which will come from larger operation has been the logical conclusion of Congress in its previous enactments, and is also supported by the best opinion in the country. Such consolidation will assure not only a greater element of competition as to service, but it will afford economy in operation, greater stability in railway earnings, and more economical financing. It opens large possibilities of better equalization of rates between different classes of traffic so as to relieve undue burdens upon agricultural products and raw materials generally, which are now not possible without ruin to small units owing to the lack of diversity of traffic. It would also tend to equalize earnings in such fashion as to reduce the importance of section 15A, at which criticism, often misapplied, has been directed. A smaller number of units would offer less difficulties in labor adjustments and would contribute much to the, solution of terminal difficulties.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

Way, Fashion, Support, Nature

“If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvellous fight in the world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”

Mark Twain book Concerning the Jews

Concerning the Jews (Harper's Magazine, Sept. 1899)

People, Secret, Age, World

“Structural reforms and respecting European treaties are the two pre-requisites to reduce deficits in the long-term and boost the economy’s potential growth rate which, at around 1%, is much lower than the government estimates (close to 4%). It is the French economy’s ‘corsets’ that are to blame for the country’s weak growth (both potential and recorded) which itself generates the deficits and not the austerity policies made necessary by galloping deficits as partisans of the so-called demand- led policy think. The French economy is primarily ill because of its public finances.”

Éric Pichet (1960) economist

Le programme de stabilité et le pacte de responsabilité : la trajectoire des finances publiques de 2014 à 2017 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2499496 Article in Revue de Droit Fiscal n31-35 (2014). Structural reforms, The French Economy corsets

Thinking, Country

“No more important development has taken place in the last year than the beginning of a restoration of agriculture to a prosperous condition. We must permit no division of classes in this country, with one occupation striving to secure advantage over another. Each must proceed under open opportunities and with a fair prospect of economic equality. The Government can not successfully insure prosperity or fix prices by legislative fiat. Every business has its risk and its times of depression. It is well known that in the long run there will be a more even prosperity and a more satisfactory range of prices under the natural working out of economic laws than when the Government undertakes the artificial support of markets and industries. Still we can so order our affairs, so protect our own people from foreign competition, so arrange our national finances, so administer our monetary system, so provide for the extension of credits, so improve methods of distribution, as to provide a better working machinery for the transaction of the business of the Nation with the least possible friction and loss. The Government has been constantly increasing its efforts in these directions for the relief and permanent establishment of agriculture on a sound and equal basis with other business.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

People, Law, Business, Support

“We say, 'We think you are a talented, functioning person, and we are hiring you because of your abilities, and whatever you come up with, we're going to take.' If we make a mistake, it will be in picking the wrong person. What we're striving for is total freedom, where we can finance our pictures, make them our way, release them where we want them released and be completely free to express ourselves. That's very hard to do in the world of business. In this country, the only thing that speaks is money and you have to have the money in order to have the power to be free. So the danger is — in being as oppressive as the next guy to the people below you. We're going to do everything possible to avoid that pitfall. But if we fail, it's another saga in the history of man…”

George Lucas (1944) American film producer

On how American Zoetrope functions
1970s, Interview with Judy Stone (1971)

Money, People, World, Way

“I write to tender my irrevocable resignation as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee on Finance and as co-chairman of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Public Expenditures, effective immediately.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2015, Letter to Senate President Franklin Drilon

“It's very important to be able to act properly. You need financing, and you never have enough.”

Martti Ahtisaari (1937) Finnish politician and former President of Finland

On his plans to use the Nobel Prize money to help fund peace organisations he has worked with, quoted in "Ahtisaari wins Nobel Peace Prize" in BBC News (10 October 2008) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7662922.stm

“…it is a revolution without any mandate from the people. (Cheers.) Now, gentlemen, it is in the first place a revolution in fiscal methods…this Budget is introduced as a Liberal measure. If so, all I can say is that it is a new Liberalism and not the one that I have known and practised under more illustrious auspices than these. (Cheers.) Who was the greatest, not merely the greatest Liberal, but the greatest financier that this country has ever known? (A voice, "Gladstone.") I mean Mr. Gladstone. (Cheers.) With Sir Robert Peel—he, I think, occupied a position even higher than Sir Robert Peel—for boldness of imagination and scope of financing Mr. Gladstone ranks as the great financial authority of our time. (Cheers.) Now, we have in the Cabinet at this moment several colleagues, several ex-colleagues of mine, who served in the Cabinet with Mr. Gladstone…and I ask them, without a moment's fear or hesitation as to the answer that would follow if they gave it from their conscience, with what feelings would they approach Mr. Gladstone, were he Prime Minister and still living, with such a Budget as this? Mr. Gladstone would be 100 in December if he were alive; but, centenarian as he would be, I venture to say that he would make short work of the deputation of the Cabinet that waited on him with the measure, and they would soon find themselves on the stairs and not in the room. (Laughter and cheers.) In his eyes, and in my eyes, too, as a humble disciple, Liberalism and Liberty were cognate terms. They were twin-sisters. How does the Budget stand the test of Liberalism so understood and of Liberty as we have always comprehended it? This Budget seems to establish an inquisition, unknown previously in Great Britain, and a tyranny, I venture to say, unknown to mankind…I think my friends are moving on the path that leads to Socialism. How far they are advanced on that path I will not say, but on that path I, at any rate, cannot follow them an inch. (Loud cheers.) Any form of protection is an evil, but Socialism is the end of all, the negation of faith, of family, of prosperity, of the monarchy, of Empire.”

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847–1929) British politician

Loud cheers.
Speech in Glasgow attacking the "People's Budget" (10 September 1909), reported in The Times (11 September 1909), pp. 7-8.

People, Fear, Family, Faith

“For if experience has ever taught a truth, it is that a plurality in the supreme Executive will forever split into discordant factions, distract the nation, annihilate its energies, and force the nation to rally under a single head, generally an usurper. We have, I think, fallen on the happiest of all modes of constituting the Executive, that of easing and aiding our President, by permitting him to choose Secretaries of State, of Finance, of War, and of the Navy, with whom he may advise, either separately or all together, and remedy their divisions by adopting or controlling their opinions at his discretion; this saves the nation from the evils of a divided will, and secures to it a steady march in the systematic course which the President may have adopted for that of his administration.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1820s, Letter to A. Coray (1823)

War, Truth, Thinking, Evil

“What did I think about Brown? I’ve said before, I don’t like his kind of politics. I didn’t really meet him properly but I identify him with state, state-ism, with simultaneously high morals and low cynicism. I never identified with that kind of politics. The last gasps of this idea that through the state you can transform society but how that then automatically leads to a dependence on finance to fund it. I don’t think Gordon Brown redistributed power to people.”

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (1961) British philosopher

Interview with Inside Politics, 4 February 2015 https://www.holyrood.com/articles/inside-politics/architect-blue-labour-interview-lord-glasman

People, Idea, Thinking, Dependency

“No! But they were here [in Los Angeles]. Here they were surprised, because it was difficult to finance, the film. A lot of the executives would say, 'I just don't get it.”

Meryl Streep (1949) American actress

Her indignant comments on the runaway success of her musical Mamma Mia!, which grossed a $575m across the globe.
"Meryl Streep: Movies, marriage, and turning sixty," 2009

Angels

“The bourgeoisie first betrayed society through capitalism and finance, and now labor betrays it by embracing a scheme of things which sees profit only, not duty and honor, in work. This view will seem hopelessly unrealistic to those who do not admit that sentiment toward the whole is the only ultimate means of measuring value.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

Source: Ideas have Consequences (1948), p. 75.

“…the finances of the country is intimately associated with the liberties of the country. It is a powerful leverage by which English liberty has been gradually acquired. Running back into the depths of antiquities for many centuries, it lies at the root of English liberty, and if the House of Commons can by any possibility lose the power of the control of the grants of public money, depend upon it your very liberty will be worth very little in comparison.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Hastings (17 March 1891), quoted in A. W. Hutton and H. J. Cohen (eds.), The Speeches of The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone on Home Rule, Criminal Law, Welsh and Irish Nationality, National Debt and the Queen's Reign. 1888–1891 (London: Methuen, 1902), p. 343.
1890s

Money, Housing, Dependency, Country

“We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.”

Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) Television journalist

RTNDA Convention Speech (1958)

“Every nation has to either be with us, or against us. Those who harbor terrorists, or who finance them, are going to pay a price.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Sound file (13 September 2001) http://www.wavsource.com/news/20010911a.htm Senate years (2001 – January 19, 2007)

“Everything we hope to do, depends on an expanding economic pie. And only a vibrant, competitive, thriving private sector can create that. Government is a necessary partner, but it is the junior partner. Only the private sector can produce the revenues for the social programs that we Democrats care so much about. The financing of those programs through ever more public debt violates our generation responsibility.”

Paul Tsongas (1941–1997) American politician

ibid.

Hope, Dependency

“We humans who art on Earth, humanity is special, our kingdom has come. Do what we innately know to be right, on Earth because that's all there is. Share the bread we have, try not to screw up. When others screw up, understand. We can't have everything that tempts us (Unless we work in international finance). Deliver ourselves from evil because this is it. The Earth, the power to do right, and the glory that will come if we do is ours, now and forever. Hu-man.”

Marcus Brigstocke (1973) comedian

The Now Show

Art, Understanding, Evil

“Lip service to disarmament is insufficient; the goal is to find ways to redirect the resources used for the military and reduce the danger of war while liberating funds to finance development and all-inclusive growth.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Interim report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, Alfred Maurice de Zayas http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IntOrder/A.67.277_en.pdf. 2012

War, Way

“In my view—and that of most contemporary economists, I believe—Schumpeter’s most original and most lastingly significant book was Theory of Economic Development, which appeared in 1911 (and was translated into English in 1934). It was at the University of Czernowitz, not far from the beginning of his career as an economist, that he worked out his conception of the entrepreneur, the maker of “new combinations,” as the driving force and characteristic figure of the fits-and-starts evolution of the capitalist economy. He was explicit that, while technological innovation was in the long run the most important function of the entrepreneur, organizational innovation in governance, finance, and management was comparable in significance.”

Robert Solow (1924) American economist

"Heavy Thinker" (2007)

Books, Universe, Appearance

“The farther afield mergers were, the less likely antitrust authorities were to intervene. Growth through mergers required that finance-oriented managers choose their targets carefully. They sought profitable and growing industries where their capital would earn higher rates of return and avoided mergers where the threat of antitrust prosecution might exist.”

Neil Fligstein (1951) American sociologist

Source: The transformation of corporate control, 1993, p. 240

“The finance conception of the modern corporation, which currently dominates, emphasizes control through the use of financial tools which measure performance according to profit rates. Product lines are evaluated on their short-run profitability and important management decisions are based on the potential profitability of each line. Firms are viewed as collections of assets earning differing rates of return, not as producers of given goods. The firm is not seen as being a member of only one industry. Consequently if the prospect of an industry in which it participates declines, the firm disinvests. The problem for management from this perspective is to maximize short-run rates of return by altering product mix, thereby increasing shareholder equity and keeping the stock price high”

Neil Fligstein (1951) American sociologist

Source: The transformation of corporate control, 1993, p. 15

Problem, Decision

“The long-awaited "campaign finance reform" vote finally took place last week, with the House ultimately passing the measure. The debate was full of hypocritical high-minded talk about cleaning up corruption, all by the very politicians of both parties who dole out billions in corporate subsidies and welfare pork. It was quite a spectacle watching the big-spending, perennially-incumbent politicians argue that new laws were needed to protect them from themselves!”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Don't Believe the Hype- "Campaign Finance Reform" Serves Entrenched Interests http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/document.php?id=240 (February 18, 2002). 2000s, 2001-2005

Law, Housing

“We should be offended when children are denied a proper education. We should be offended when children are told they will spend eternity in hell. We should be offended when medical science, for example stem-cell research, is compromised by the bigoted opinions of powerful and above all well-financed ignoramuses. We should be offended when voodoo, of all kinds, is given equal weight to science. We should be offended by hymen reconstruction surgery. We should be offended by 'female circumcision', euphemism for genital mutilation. We should be offended by stoning.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Lecture at UC Berkeley about The God Delusion, 08/03/2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaJelU29jeI&t=49s Lecture at UC Berkeley (2008)

Children, Education, Hell, Science

“By 1939 the national debt had reached 37.4 billion marks. The reemployment of millions of jobless and the rearmament of German military forces had been financed by borrowing gigantic sums of money. Even Goebbels, who otherwise mocked the government’s financial experts as narrow-minded misers, expressed concern in his diary about the exploding deficit.”

Götz Aly (1947) German journalist, historian and social scientist

Source: Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State (2007), p. 39

Money

“Nehru’s daughter, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, carried her father’s game much farther. In her fight for a monopoly of power, she split the Congress Party, and made a common cause with the Communists. Well-known Communists and fellow-travellers were given positions of power in the ruling Congress Party, in the Government at the Centre as well in the States, and in prestigious institutions all over the country. The Muslim-Marxist combine of “historians” had already captured the Indian History Congress during the days of Pandit Nehru, and many honest historians had been hounded out of it. Now this combine was placed in control of the Indian Council of Historical Research and entrusted with extensive patronage. The combine took over the National Council of Educational Research and Training also, and laid down the guidelines for producing school textbooks on various subjects. The Jawaharlal Nehru University was created and financed on a fabulous scale in order to collect Communist professors from all over the country, and form them into a frontline brigade for launching all sorts of anti-Hindu campaigns. The smokescreen for this Stalinist operation was provided by the slogan of Secularism which nobody was supposed to question, or examine as to what it had come to mean. Its meaning had to be accepted ex-cathedra, and as laid down by the Muslim-Marxist combine. In the new political parlance that emerged, Hinduism and the nationalism it inspired, became blackned as “Communalism.””

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Small wonder that the word “Hindu” started becoming a dirty word in the academia as well as the media.
Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

Education, School, Travel, History

“You know, some people like to call me Mad Max like in the movie.
They may believe it’s an insult. But let me tell you something:
It’s true. I am mad!
I’m mad about government waste!
I’m mad about government borrowing money on the backs of future generations, to benefit big corporations!
I’M MAD THAT THE LIBERALS ARE RUNNING OUR COUNTRY’S FINANCES, AND OUR NATION’S FUTURE, INTO THE GROUND!
I’M MAD THAT THE LIBERAL GOVERNMENT SHRINKS OUR PAYCHECK WITH HIGHT TAXES AND TAKES AWAY OUR FREEDOM.
I’m mad about the federal government constantly meddling in provincial jurisdictions!
I’m mad at politicians who promise anything to get elected!
So yes, you can call me Mad Max.
I don’t mind!
I’m asking you to get mad like me and take your future into your hands.”

Maxime Bernier (1963) Canadian politician

3 October 2016 Facebook post https://www.facebook.com/hon.maximebernier/posts/10154565323228703 quoted 28 May 2018 on Toronto Sun https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/bonokoski-mad-maxs-dustup-over-a-liberal-mps-skin-colour-comments About

Money, People, Freedom, Future

“Money, having freed itself from the physical universe, has become number itself, and finance a strange form of mathematical alchemy.”

David Orrell (1962) Canadian mathematician

Source: The Other Side Of The Coin (2008), Chapter 3, One Versus Plurality, p. 89

Money, Mathematics, Universe

“Thoughtful conservatives are not unattracted to holistic providers' emphasis on self-care and personal responsibility. Thoughtful liberals and socialists are not unattracted to holistic providers' emphasis on environmental factors in disease. But neither left nor right has ever acknowledged that the holistic health movement carries within it the seeds of a whole new approach to a national health care program for this country, with its own coherent ideas about finance, delivery, research and education.”

Mark Satin (1946) American political theorist, author, and newsletter publisher

Source: New Options for America (1991), Chapter 13, "National Holistic Health Care Program: Too Sensible?," p. 100.

Health, Education, Disease, Idea

“The sponsor of an hour's television program is not buying merely the six minutes devoted to commercial message. He is determining, within broad limits, the sum total of the impact of the entire hour. If he always, invariably, reaches for the largest possible audience, then this process of insulation, of escape from reality, will continue to be massively financed, and its apologist will continue to make winsome speeches about giving the public what it wants, or "letting the public decide."”

Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) Television journalist

RTNDA Convention Speech (1958)

Reality

“In 2014, one of the key agendas of the BJP’s election campaign was highlighting the dismal management of the Indian economy, ironically under an ‘economist’ prime minister and a ‘know-it-all’ finance minister. We all knew that the economy was in the doldrums but since we were not in government, we naturally did not have the complete details of the state of the economy. But, what we saw when we formed the government left us shocked! The state of the economy was much worse than expected. Things were terrible. Even the budget figures were suspicious. When all of this came to light, we had two options – to be driven by Rajneeti (political considerations) or be guided by Rashtraneeti (putting the interests of India First)… Rajneeti, or playing politics on the state of the economy in 2014, would have been extremely simple as well as politically advantageous for us. We had just won a historic election, so obviously the frenzy was at a different level. The Congress Party and their allies were in big trouble. Even for the media, it would have made news for months on end. On the other hand, there was Rashtraneeti, where more than politics and one-upmanship, reform was needed. Needless to say, we preferred to think of ‘India First’ instead of putting politics first. We did not want to push the issues under the carpet, but we were more interested in addressing the issue. We focused on reforming, strengthening and transforming the Indian economy. The details about the decay in the Indian economy were unbelievable. It had the potential to cause a crisis all over. In 2014, industry was leaving India. India was in the Fragile Five. Experts believed that the ‘I’ in BRICS would collapse. Public sentiment was that of disappointment and pessimism.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

Narendra Modi, Swarajya Interviews Prime Minister Modi, Interview, R Jagannathan- Jul 02, 2018 https://swarajyamag.com/economy/swarajya-interviews-prime-minister-modi-the-state-of-indian-economy 2018

Disappointment, Nature, Thinking, Light

“Left to its own devices the market is capable of the most miraculous of inventions and the silliest of self-delusions. It is an extreme romantic. It also has a real purpose — the same one it has always had. That is to organize the supply and exchange of goods or to finance the production of goods — thus facilitating and financing the economy. But the market cannot achieve in a regular and lasting manner its own purpose because it is only an unconscious and abstract mechanism. The factor which must be added in order to create the restraint, balance, and consciousness necessary for long-term prosperity is human leadership. That leadership takes the form of effective regulation.”

John Ralston Saul The Doubter's Companion

"Marketplace"
The Doubter's Companion (1994)

“…yet we are told that this great nation, with such a record of splendid achievements in the past and in the present, is unfit to make its own laws, is unfit to control its own finance, and that it is to be placed as if it were a nation of children or lunatics, under the tutelage and guardianship of some other body—and what body? Who are the guardians of this mighty people? Who are they? With all respect, I shall have to make exceptions; but I am speaking of them as a whole. … They are men who have neither the training, the qualifications, nor the experience which would fit them for such a gigantic task. They are men whose sole qualification—speaking in the main, and for the majority of them—they are simply men whose sole qualification is that they are the first born of persons who had just as little qualification as themselves.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the National Liberal Club (3 December 1909), quoted in Better Times: Speeches by the Right Hon. D. Lloyd George, M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910), pp. 178-179.
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Men, Children, People, Law

“Europe is to be turned into a banana republic by taxing labor – not finance, insurance or real estate (FIRE). Governments are to impose heavier employment and sales taxes while cutting back pensions and other public spending. … The financial privatization and credit-creation monopoly that governments have relinquished to banks is now to really pay off – at the price of breaking up Europe. … The unelected members of the European Central Bank have taken over planning power from elected governments. Beholden to its financial constituency, the ECB has convinced the EU commission to back the new oligarchic power grab. … In sum, the Neoliberal Revolution seeks to achieve in Europe what the United States has achieved since real wages stopped rising in 1979: doubling the share of wealth enjoyed by the richest 1%. This involves reducing the middle class to poverty, breaking union power, and destroying the internal market as a precondition.”

Michael Hudson (economist) (1939) American economist

Who Wins? http://michael-hudson.com/2010/10/who-wins/ (October 3, 2010) Michael-Hudson.com, 1998-

Wealth

“A free society will abide unofficial, private discrimination, even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin. It is unenlightened and ill-informed to promote discrimination against individuals based on the color of their skin. It is likewise unwise to forget the distinction between public (taxpayer-financed) and private entities.”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

Letter to the editor, Bowling Green Daily News, 2002-05-30
Rand Paul in '02: I may not like it, but 'a free society' will allow 'hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin'
Right Now
Washington Post
2010-05-20
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/05/rand_paul_in_2002_i_may_not_li.html

Hate, People, Color, Forgetting

“As one of our colleagues recently put it, this Republican pledge of no new taxes is pure Bushlips. It's Bushlips when the president says 'No new taxes' and sends a budget requiring the Finance Committee to raise $20 billion in new revenues: $15 billion in taxes and $5 billion in user fees.”

Lloyd Bentsen (1921–2006) American politician

quoted in [24 March 1990, Paul, Taylor, Democratic Leaders Talk Tough on Taxes;President's Promise Not to Impose New Levies Is 'Pure Bushlips,' Sen. Bentsen Declares, The Washington Post, 0190-8286, A6, http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/access/72577580.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Mar+24%2C+1990&author=Paul+Taylor&pub=The+Washington+Post+(pre-1997+Fulltext)&edition=&startpage=a.06&desc=Democratic+Leaders+Talk+Tough+on+Taxes%3BPresident%27s+Promise+Not+to+Impose+New+Levies+Is+%60Pure+Bushlips%2C%27+Sen.+Bentsen+Declares]
alluding to George H. W. Bush's pledge “Read my lips: no new taxes” while accepting the presidential nomination at the 1988 Republican National Convention

“What is the "cost of capital" to a, firm in a world in which funds are used to acquire assets whose yields are uncertain; and in which capital can be obtained by many different media, ranging from pure debt instruments, representing money-fixed claims, to pure equity issues, giving holders only the right to a pro-rata share in the uncertain venture? This question has vexed at least three classes of economists: (1) the corporation finance specialist concerned with the techniques of financing firms so as to ensure their survival and growth; (2) the managerial economist concerned with capital budgeting; and (3) the economic theorist concerned with explaining investment behavior at both the micro and macro levels.”

Franco Modigliani (1918–2003) Italian-American economist

Franco Modigliani and Merton H. Miller. "The cost of capital, corporation finance and the theory of investment." The American economic review (1958): 261-297.

Money, World, Behavior, Question

“Amid the vast modern network of universities, corporate laboratories, and national science foundations has arisen an awareness that the best financed and best organized of research enterprises have not learned to engender, perhaps not even to recognize, world-tuning originality.”

James Gleick book Genius

James Gleick (1992). Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman. Vintage Books

World, Learning, Universe, Science

“The American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing. A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs. The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk.

In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

[2008-11-19, Let Detroit Go Bankrupt, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html]
2008

Fate, Cars

“The very wise and wealthy financiers of the world--going way back, even before Rothschild's time--have observed that the world was a pretty rocky place to live in, and that nations were always fighting over something or other, there was always somebody who was trying to conquer somebody else, and wars were universal. Too bad about that, but that's the way it is. So we--the bankers--found out that if we loan money to them that we'll get paid back - they don't question what the interest rate is because they're fighting a war! And if they can win the war they can just plunder the victim and pay us whatever we want out of the plunder - it doesn't cost them anything really. Then the issue comes up of what happens if one of these nations decides not to pay us? Ah! The answer is very simple: if they refuse to pay us back we'll finance an opposing nation, a revolutionary group somewhere else to become an enemy of that nation and attack it, and destroy it, invade it. We'll create another war, in other words, in order to get our money back, we'll finance this side to attack that side. And so, by financing all sides in a war, and keeping the world divided up into warring fractions so that no one unit is particularly stronger than the other, the banks can continue to finance all sides of wars forever, and always collect their interest, because they have the ability of putting one nation against another nation against another nation to collect their debts.”

G. Edward Griffin (1931) American conspiracy theorist, film producer, author, and political lecturer

From the documentary Corporate Fascism: The Destruction of America's Middle Class (2011) http://www.youtube.com/embed/hTbvoiTJKIs?autoplay=1&start=2094&end=2183

Money, War, World, Way

“This view that the action of the Federal Reserve authorities in 1927 was responsible for the speculation and collapse which followed has never been seriously shaken. There are reasons why it is attractive. It is simple, and it exonerates both the American people and the economic system from substantial blame… Yet the explanation obviously assumes that people will always speculate if only they can get the money to finance it. Nothing could be farther from the case. There were times before and there has been long periods since when credit was plentiful and cheap -- far cheaper than in 1927-29 -- and when speculation was negligible. Nor was speculation out of control after 1927, except that it was beyond the reach of men who did not want in the least to control it. The explanation is a tribute only to a recurrent preference, in economic matters, for formidable nonsense.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Source: The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929), Chapter I, "Vision and Boundless Hope and Optimism" p. 10

Men, Money, People, Time

“The Daily News ignores, as does the Fair Housing Act, the distinction between private and public property. Should it be prohibited for public, taxpayer-financed institutions such as schools to reject someone based on an individual's beliefs or attributes? Most certainly. Should it be prohibited for private entities such as a church, bed-and-breakfast or retirement neighborhood that doesn't want noisy children? Absolutely not. Decisions concerning private property and associations should in a free society be unhindered.”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

2000s

Children, School, Decision, Housing

“Tell the King, that whole cities are in open revolt against the prosecutions, and that it is impossible to enforce the decrees here. As for myself, I shall continue to hold by the Catholic faith; but I will never give any colour to the tyrannical claim of kings to dictate to the consciences of their people, and to prescribe the form of religion that they choose to impose. Call the King’s attention to the corruption that has crept into the administration of justice. Let the Government be reformed, the Privy Council and the Council of Finance, and increase the authority of the Council of State.”

William the Silent (1533–1584) stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht, leader of the Dutch Revolt

To the Count of Egmont about what to say to Philip II (1565), as quoted in William the Silent (1897) by Frederic Harrison, p. 22

People, Faith, Religion, Justice

“A month after Powell's speech, New York Times columnist Maureen Down remarked that it was no wonder Americans were confused; the United states was about to go to war against a country that did not attack it on September 11, as did al-Queda; that did not intercept its planes, as did North Korea; that did not finance al-Queda, as did Saudi Arabia; that was not home to Osama bin Laden's lieutenants, as was Pakistan; and was not a host body for terrorists, as were Iran and Syria.”

Maureen Dowd (1952) American journalist

From [Halper, Stefan, Clarke, Johnathan, America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order, 2004, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 0-521-83834-7 hardback, 213]

War, Home, Time, Country